- Hi, I'm Lilly Singh, a YouTuber, an actor,
a late night host, a writer, a producer.
And I'm so excited about my Skillshare class where I talk
about the art of storytelling specifically on social media.
Here is a sneak peek.
Now let me guess, okay.
You had an amazing time making this one video.
Now you're like, I want to make more.
How do I grow my channel?
Well, that's what this lesson is all about.
A big part of growing your channel is becoming familiar
with your community.
You know, over time, if you post videos consistently
you'll notice that you start to develop a fan base.
People who expect certain things
from your content, to feel a certain way,
whether to laugh or to learn or wherever it may be.
And the best way to grow your channel is to
keep those people engaged.
And then to also bring in new people
that have similar interests.
Well, how do you do that?
You got to to talk to your audience.
You know a big part of my career was
going through the comments,
seeing what things people really connected with,
what things people weren't as thrilled about,
replying to comments, really getting an understanding of
what does my audience want to see?
Only if you know what your audience wants to see
can you make the 50/50 rule work for you?
Because remember 50% is passion.
50% is strategy based on what your audience wants to see.
If you don't know what your audience wants to see
you can't take advantage of that 50%.
Have call to actions in your videos that say,
hey comment below,
let me know what part of this video did you like?
What other videos do you want to see from me?
A big part of my come up was doing a live stream
once a month.
On the 14th of every month for many years I did
a live stream where I just chatted with my audience.
I answered their questions.
I took their video recommendations
and what happened there was not only did
I learn what my audience wants to see,
but my audience also learned a lot
about me and something magical happened.
People weren't coming to my channel
just for the videos,
they were coming to my channel
for the person behind the videos.
You know, my fans today, don't just know me
as the girl who does characters
and the girl who has the videos.
They know me as the girl who idolizes Dwayne Johnson,
the girl who worked really hard for that one shoot
because we saw the behind the scenes.
And as much as you can bring your audience in
and make them part of the experience,
the more engaged they will be with your wins
and your journey.
Beyond that, you know, collaborations are really important.
A lot of my channel growth,
you could see little spikes in my analytics
anytime I would collaborate with another big creator.
Find other creators that are on the come up, just like you
or maybe, you know, have been doing it a while
if you've been doing it a while.
I think it's important to find creators that are
on the same page as you.
I remember when I started, I would email people.
I think I had like a thousand subscribers
and I would email people that had
like 10 million subscribers
and I'd be like so you want to like do a,
do a collab with me?
The level of delusion.
And this is not meant to be mean.
It's just meant to make you aware that there is
a business side of things.
And so if you're going to collaborate with someone,
find someone where it's mutually beneficial
where you both have something to offer each other
and you can create art
that makes sense for both of your audiences.
Another way to grow your channel
is using functionality that exists
on these platforms for the purpose of growing.
You know putting your videos into playlists on YouTube,
allow someone to watch one of your videos
and then for another video to play right after.
So there's less chance of someone clicking away
to someone else's channel.
Understanding playlists, understanding channel trailers.
You know, when you go to my channel
it will look different depending on
if you're subscribed to me or not subscribed to me.
And so what can I do to my channel to entice you
to subscribe and to give my content a chance.
Now, all of these are ways to grow your channel and,
and be shiny in a sea full of a lot of content.
Part of the job is keeping up with platforms.
You know if you're a storyteller on social media
you have to know changes that are happening to social media.
And there's lots of ways to learn them.
One is I am subscribed to most newsletters from platforms.
If there's an Instagram update, I get an email about it.
I also follow all of the head teams on their platforms.
For example, you know, the head of Instagram is Adam Mosseri
and he on his profile always makes videos
and posts about new features.
And so just by following him
I know about all the new functionality
as soon as it comes out.
This is the playground you're playing in.
If there's innovations, you need to know about them.
That's a big part of your job.
You know Facebook's monetization has changed so many times
over the past couple of years from,
hey we're monetizing only over three minutes.
Okay, now you can monetize one minute.
Okay but this doesn't count as a view.
Okay but you can't do this.
And if you don't know that information
you could not be hitting your goals simply
because you're not giving yourself a fair shot.
Let's talk about something that has to do
with growing your channel, but also making money.
And that is brand deals.
You know, brand deals help grow your channel
because a brand is likely to expose you
to a new audience, so that brand's audience.
Essentially a brand deal is a trade,
money for exposure for a brand.
This can be through many ways.
It can be a YouTube video for that brand,
a YouTube video featuring that product,
an Instagram post featuring that product,
certain talking points you need to hit in an interview
or a tweet.
When it comes to the art of negotiation and business,
you can also be very creative there.
You want me to talk about this brand?
Let's do it in the middle
of a sketch where it's a brand deal
but it's organic and it can be funny.
And we invite people in
and it doesn't feel like they're being advertised to.
So there's a lot of room to play in that arena as well.
If you like a brand,
I encourage you to try to get that brand's attention.
You know, a brand I really love is Skittles.
And I made that abundantly clear
in many of my early videos.
You know before I had a team
and before I had people teaching me about brands
I used to eat Skittles in my videos all the time.
And it got the attention of Skittles.
When Skittles reached out it was a very organic partnership
and it also resulted in a lifetime supply of Skittles.
This whole story was just
for me to flex my lifetime supply of Skittles.
(angelic music)
So I would say be familiar with analytics, but balance that
with your instincts.
Another way to grow your channel
but this is aside from numbers, aside from money,
it's not only growing your channel.
It's about growing as a storyteller.
And you know, I think one of the greatest things
storytelling can do is it can show us a perspective
we would have otherwise never known or seen.
So I have chosen to pick a cause I'm very passionate
about and embedded into my content whenever I can.
And that cause is a social good initiative called Girl Love.
Yo, we have something to tell you.
One, two, three
- [Group] Spread girl love.
- And Girl Love is all about women supporting women.
But beyond that just the support of women,
getting opportunities, getting education.
And so anything that is a women's issue
I like to touch on.
Now, it can be tricky to have a cause like that
that's pretty serious.
And then also do comedy.
It's like, how do you marry those two things together?
Well, there's lots of different ways.
You know, I have a lot of videos online that are comedy
but that make commentary on gender inequality.
I have taken my audience on trips to South Africa,
to parts of Kenya, to parts of India, to parts of Ecuador.
And when you can go on a journey
with someone like that and say like hey here are the girls.
They're literally right here, hear from them.
These are the girls we're helping with whatever you know
initiative I'm doing at the time.
It's so much more powerful when you can see those stories
through the screen.
And so I believe a big way to not only grow your channel
but just be a good human and be of service is to
pick a cause you're really passionate about
and be an advocate for that cause.
So after all of this
how do you know you've reached your goal?
It's tricky.
It takes a lot of reflection and it takes a lot
of honesty and it takes a lot of openness to change.
You know, years ago my goal was to be
the top of top on YouTube.
I want to be a big creator.
I wanted big numbers.
- And the Streamy goes to.
(screaming)
- Anything YouTube would present to me in terms of events
or shoots I would say yes.
I wanted to be everywhere.
And I did that for a while.
At a certain point, I recall feeling like,
oh I really want to make a video
that's different from what I've been doing.
Or I really have an inkling to do auditions, to do movies,
to do TV.
I had to pay attention to these voices inside of me
that wanted something else because so much of me
was resistant to change.
It was no, but you got to focus on YouTube
and the numbers that's on your vision board.
And I had to be open with my priorities shifting
and that's okay.
Right now what I'm trying to do is
I'm trying to step further out of my comfort zone
and continue to grow by, you know, my late night show,
and trying to do riskier, bigger, funner things.
So what I'd like you to do is think about the next step
in growing your channel, whether it's a dream collaboration,
a cause you would like to support,
or whatever the next thing you want to do is,
and share it in the project gallery.
And do it, for real go do it.
We don't just have these daydreams to mock us.
We have them as guidance.
If you dreamt it up, you can do it.
I am telling you, you can do it.
I'm usually right.
(upbeat music)
And there's much more where that came from.
To check out my entire Skillshare class
click the link below and let's nerd out together.
(upbeat music)